Research On The Formation Mechanism Of Eco-anxiety Under The Influence Of Sense Of Power And The Influence Of Eco-anxiety On Green Consumption Intention

In addition to policy support and supply-side reform of enterprises,the comprehensive promotion of green consumption requires consumers to gradually develop a personal awareness of the green transformation of consumption and consciously build sustainability into their consumption concept.In fact,emotion is a precursor to behavior.As an emotional reaction to ecological deterioration and environmental crisis,eco-anxiety reflects the individual’s internal needs to regulate the relationship between humans and nature,and is a crucial driving force to closely combine the environmental benefits of green consumption with personal benefits and promote the spontaneous practice of green consumption by the public.The interpretation of the formation of eco-anxiety and the relationship between eco-anxiety and green consumption contributes to the insight into the public’s understanding and attitude towards ecological change and environmental issues,and also provides the realization path for strengthening the intrinsic motivation of individual consumption’s green transformation and cultivating sustainable and green consumption concept.Based on the relationship between cognitive appraisal,emotion,and coping in the cognitive appraisal theories of stress,this study takes eco-anxiety,an emotional reaction symbolizing the relationship between human beings and environmental issues,as the core research focus in the context of ecological change and environmental issues.This study firstly pay attention to eco-anxiety and cognitive appraisal and explore the factors and mechanisms that determinate eco-anxiety.Second,in order to better play the constructive role of eco-anxiety,this study further focuses on eco-anxiety and coping,discussing the impact of eco-anxiety on green consumption intentions and exploring the internal mechanisms and boundary conditions.First,this study focuses on the relationship between eco-anxiety and cognitive appraisal,and answers the question "How the sense of power affects eco-anxiety".The premise and basis for making full use of the constructive effects of eco-anxiety is to elucidate the individual and external factors that influence its generation.Therefore,based on the relationship between emotion and cognitive appraisal,this study discusses the formation mechanism of eco-anxiety,explore how the sense of power as an individual factor affects eco-anxiety and the mediating role of environmental threat perception,and analyze the boundary effect of environmental issue disclosure from the perspective of information intervention.Four experiments provide empirical support for the hypotheses.First,Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 test the influence of sense of power on eco-anxiety through a questionnaire survey and an experiment,respectively.Experiment 1 measures the participants’ long-term sense of power.Experiment 2 builds on this work by manipulating the sense of power through a recall task and proves that it has a significant negative impact on eco-anxiety.Compared with the high sense of power,the eco-anxiety is higher under the low sense of power(H1).Experiment 3adopts another priming procedure of sense of power and examines the mediating role of environmental threat perception.The results show that,compared with high-power individuals,low-power individuals have higher environmental threat perception and thus higher eco-anxiety(H2).Experiment 4 tests the moderating effect of environmental issue disclosure by manipulating the individual orientation condition,the public orientation condition,and the control condition without environmental issue disclosure information.The results show that,compared with high-power individuals,low-power individuals have higher environmental threat perception and eco-anxiety under the public-oriented environmental issue disclosure,and the mediating effect of environmental threat perception is significant(H3a,H4a).However,under the individual-oriented disclosure of environmental issues,the influence of sense of power on the environmental threat perception and eco-anxiety and the mediating effect of the environmental threat perception are not significant(H3b,H4b).Moreover,in the absence of environmental issue disclosure,both eco-anxiety and environmental threat perception are higher in individuals with low sense of power than those with high sense of power,with environmental threat perception acting as a mediator.Eco-anxiety is significantly increased for both high and low sense of power conditions after receiving environmental issue disclosures.Tthis study further focuses on the relationship between eco-anxiety and coping,and answers the question "How eco-anxiety affects green consumption intentions".First,based on the relationship between emotion and coping,this study explores the influence of eco-anxiety on green consumption intentions and the role of problemsolving tendency as a mediator.Second,coping capacity is a key factor affecting the coping process and a considerable boundary limiting or enhancing the relationship between eco-anxiety and green consumption intentions.Therefore,this study discusses the moderating effects of individual efficacy beliefs from the view of individual factors of consumers and the moderating effects of green trust on the consideration of whether green consumption can function as an effective coping behavior in solving environmental issues.Four experiments examine the hypotheses.Experiment 5 is a quasi-experiment testing the effect of eco-anxiety on green consumption intentions.Experiment 5 manipulates eco-anxiety by real air quality conditions and measures the choice of green/non-green products,finding that consumers with higher eco-anxiety are more inclined to choose green products(H5).Experiment 6 examines the main effect of eco-anxiety on green consumption intentions and the mediating effect of the problem-solving tendency.This experiment manipulates eco-anxiety and measures green product preference,proving that high eco-anxiety stimulates problem-solving tendency and thus increases green consumption intention(H6).Experiment 7 tests the moderating effects of individual efficacy beliefs by manipulating eco-anxiety and individual efficacy beliefs and measuring green purchasing intentions.The results demonstrate the moderating effects of individual efficacy beliefs on the main effect of eco-anxiety and the mediating effect of problem-solving tendency.Eco-anxiety has a positive effect on green consumption intention only under high individual efficacy belief(H7a,H7b),and problem-solving tendency plays a mediating role(H8a,H8b).Experiment 8 measures green trust to examine its moderating effects.The results show that green trust moderates the main effect of eco-anxiety on green consumption intention and the mediating effect of problem-solving tendency.Under high green trust,eco-anxiety would improve green consumption intention(H9a,H9b).Also,compared with low green trust,individuals with high green turst would show higher green purchasing intention after the eco-anxiety activating problem-solving tendency and the mediating effect of problem-solving tendency is significant(H10a,H10b).This study extends the theoretical interpretation of the cognitive appraisal theories of stress in the context of environmental issues and contributes to the theoretical development of eco-anxiety by expanding the research on the antecedents and the constructive role of eco-anxiety.First,the formation mechanism of eco-anxiety is discussed considering the impact of sense of power,and the influence factors of ecoanxiety are enriched from a conbined perspective of individual difference and external information.Second,the valuable relationship between eco-anxiety and green consumption is explained,which is beneficial to supplement the research in the field of green consumption,and provides a theoretical perspective on the interpretation of the boundary conditions in which eco-anxiety plays a constructive role.In practice,the conclusions also provide practical inspiration in promoting a green shift in the form of consumption,guiding businesses in designing effective green marketing strategies,and helping individuals adjust to negative experiences caused by excessive eco-anxiety.